The agency played a round of "reel" or "real" to mark the 35th anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis
If only the C in CIA stood for “clever.” To mark the 35th anniversary of the start of the Iran hostage crisis, the surprisingly social media-savvy Central Intelligence Agency used Twitter to point out how the Oscar-winning film Argo took creative license with history.
“Today we tell you what’s ‘reel’ vs. ‘real,’” the CIA tweeted Friday before going on a fact-checking spree about what actually happened and what was invented for storytelling’s sake. The differences mostly come down to simplified details (they didn’t go to the Canadian ambassador’s house right away, multiple CIA agents went to Iran) and heightened drama (everything at the airport happened pretty smoothly, actually).
Despite the history lesson, the hashtag-friendly CIA still has lots of love for the film (and isn’t immune to typos): “Real #ARGO: An exciting movie that it kept us on the edge of our seats. Letting @BenAffleck film here? Best bad idea we’ve had. #ThanksBen!”
Check out the whole Twitter stream here.